Follow-ups:

AWN #133 is out there,
and Seth continues his trek to making the independent abi file conversion utility.
We return you to your previously on time AWN releasals.

This week in development

Fixes to the Linux/PPC build comes in from one unknown hacker,
while another name, Larin Hennessy, makes quite the noticeable splash.
Snapping back to the release outline for AbiWord II: The Wrath of Dom results in a hard feature freeze.
Finally, Hub knocks off two more posers on the Release HackDown for 1.0.5

Silliness of the Week

Mark, you were going to explain Morgan Le Fe and a particle that I'm almost certain most people in Martin's field don't study.
Do get on that, I thank you.

This Issue

And remember, I give you an email address so you can talk to me, in case you're not on either mailing list.

abiword from HEAD crashes when started on win32
:
Jordi comes back to find that CVS HEAD crashes on start up, which is related to the new true WYSIWYG units work.
Mikey tells us that Dom's work around involves turning the rulers off before starting the application (via profile presumably).
Just a thought for other sufferers of CVS HEAD on Windows.

imp_msword page number, header, footer?
:
Seth has interests in importing headers, footers, and page numbers for his new utility.
This is just him checking in on the validity of beginning this task himself right now.

statically linking plugin .o files?
:
Seth, in his on going stripped down converter project, expresses interest in certain plugins for image and file conversion.
Dom offers advice on how to implement his current conception of the project...he recommends, of course, the one with the least re-writing of the code.

Build fixes on Linux/PPC
:
Chad contributes a patch for building on Linux PPC.
Dom commits the "more correct version" of the patch, so,
Linux PPC users are welcome to test build-ability of CVS HEAD.

Commit: some of Larin's work
:
Dom commits a bit of patchery from Larin Hennessy, who appears to be a DIT*.
Larin learns some of the ropes in via the "but I won't commit" process.
Additionally, we learn some of the joys of reverse engineering,
e.g. ugly magic.

Re: Announce: 2.0 release plan
:
As mentioned in Announce: 2.0 release plan,
a hard feature freeze has gone into affect;
however, it should be noted, despite the release plan being followed at this point,
neither January 22nd's soft feature freeze nor February 22nd's 2.0alpha1 release has occurred.
The next major milestone, in case you are keeping track, is the strings and documentation freeze on March 30th.

Plugin Status Page on TWiki
:
The great thing about Twiki is that anyone can help!
Randy has located the latest Plugins Page on Twiki,
and he's interested in getting some more feedback and review on this particular subject.
Marc points out that import and export of plugins in such fields should be considered separately.

Traffic on the user mailing list
is sporadic at best.
Often, a good topic comes up, but users tend to only respond to the original poster rather than the list (as well),
which limits what I would add, as the only lone threads I post are announcements of importance or points of great interest.
This week, interesting topics on the user list included:

AbiWord-1.1.3 on Mandrake 9.0
:
John Mellor gets jiggy with the latest developers' build on Mandrake 9.0,
only to find the numerous problems that will afflict him on first run.
Mandrake users should wait until the mythical 9.1 with XFT2 and other fun things are already available.
Above all, as Frank says,
"Remember of course that this is a development series...."

Problem: Lines longer than page width
:
Alfonso Muņoz-Pomer Fuentes is having some character related issues in the latest CVS HEAD.
Brady Hegberg has a couple familiar suggestions that have worked on other problems, though, with their own side effects.

vi key bindings in AbiWord on Windows XP
:
Sivakumaran Raman scares me.
Vi on Windows?
That's just not right.
If you have a solution as to why what was in the FAQ failed, feel free to write in (to the list, that is).

Aiksaurus thesaurus plugin for 1.0.4
:
John Mellor wishes to use AbiWord 1.0.4 with certain plugins, including, of course, Aiksaurus.
Since Rui didn't make the Aiksaurus plugin for Mandrake 9 this time around,
John's mix of packages and source have resulted in a great and inconvenient nightmare.

Euro money sign
:
Bernard Lambey would like an easy way to get the Euro money sign (€) in AbiWord on Linux.
Unfortunately, short of character maps or key bindings, there isn't an easy way on Linux (e.g. like Windows alt+nnn).

4) Add a new class method which attempts to educate the spell checker about word replacements. Ispell has a dummy do-nothing implementation. The Pspell and GnomeSpell classes have implemented this method. This method doesn't currently get used at all, but I'm going to fix that shortly.

make tbox green again, use correctWord API, numerous memory leak fixes, dead code elimination,
free those last few bytes needed to make Unix startup+shutdown cleanly,
few cast patches from Larin and another patch from Larin, remove metas (^M), whitespace patches from Larin,
fix crash caused by a race in the incremental loader - typing in a window before a view has been created, remove Xft bits lying around
OpenWriter:tidy up some things for wlach so we can get working, read streams in sanely sized chunks instead of all-at-once,
fix up some segvs, column breaks started
Bugs: 4575 and
4648

msevior

23

major speed up with Property caching code in fv_View, first fix of FJF's Table bugs, remove selection dirt,
added ruler markers for tables upon creation, endnotes note change to the types you ask for,
endnote now appear at the end of the doc, fixes for tables broken over many pages
Bugs: 4416 and
4657

new hack on the renderText routine--we now use AlphaMap if possible, other uninitialized array, font rendering fixes,
fixed bug in toolbar resizing--3 Column view now works fine, menus no longer steal focus away from the document area,
dynamic help update, C++ cast fixes for compilation, fix for glade diving make on platforms not having glade
Bugs: 2467 and
4665

mgilbert

15

change the binary name and creation scheme to be consistent with auto* build followed by leagues of work in repairing the damage

Dom, with the help of all those of you who donated to help keep AbiWord great,
re-established the Weekly Prize Patch.
Established at $45 pre-charges (read: the financial companies cut), the prize is awarded by the decision of Martin and Dom,
both of whom must agree on the winner.
Though neither Dom nor Martin may vote for themselves, they posses to "trumps" that allow them to vote for the other,
therefore nullifying that other's vote.
Most importantly, winning is entirely dependent on how lagered-up Martin and Dom are at the time in question.

The concept of a "Project Of the Week" is to single out tasks of major interest
that outside developers might be interested in providing assistance to.
Until a "best way" of listing POWs comes to mind,
they shall be listed in a short description.
Any user interested is welcome to assist in tackling these POWs.
If you know someone who's interested, you can link directly to a POW, in order, they're pow5 (at the top) through pow1 (at the bottom).
Reminder to developers, I can't post them if you don't submit them.
Additionally, feel free to announce if one of these is finished (in case you don't mention it on the list or in the cvs).
Oh, and in case you didn't notice, they're a great way to get money from Dom, really!

Name: 4465Description: This bug contains a compilation of numerous spelling-related bugs.
Interested parties can do simple work, like Q&A to see what's still there,
to more complex work, like dialogue fixin' and locale conversion
If you have a current Abi and some time, you, too, can helpAdvertisement: My spelring dilog isn nt therRecommended Outline: Whatever's easiest for you Comments: All in all, there's something for everyone in there. System: Any and every OS. AbiVersion: Current (1.0.4, I would guess, dev and cvs releases may occur as well) Challenge level: Variable Current Heros: You must be magical to know how to fix this

Name: Project Blue Ant.Description: Perform component-specific tests, document procedural changes and open bugs as necessary. Advertisement: Play the game and get a hero credit; more recognition than QA! Recommended Outline: Email abiwordtesting@matthewcraig.com
and include available system types, AbiVersions and previous testing experience.
Receive testing instructions which will take one to two hours to complete. Comments: No experience required.
A good way to be introduced to AbiWord contribution efforts. System: Any and every OS. AbiVersion: 1.0.4 only (for now at least) Challenge level: *.... 1 star out of 5 Current Heros: "Some of the most active were Mikey Cooper, Tom Purl and Eric Blom."

^_^ More People find More Bugs ^_^

Back to normal POW status.
However, there is still a lot of work that needs to be done, and we'd love to see you help!
After the hyperbolizing this POW, interest has been dwindling, and there really is a lot left to get done.
Personally, I think it's the holidays; however, you can't go by me, because I was going to add ASCII breasts to get more attention.
On that subject, if any cute geekettes want to pose nekkid with an Abi the Ant tattoo, contact Mark Gilbert.

^_^ More People find More Bugs ^_^

Name: Style and/or Diction Plugins (bug
3281) (do either/or or both!)Description: build a plugin to allow AbiWord to check style and dictionAdvertisement: me got no grammar fixer, help mes can't you?Recommended Outline: Create a plugin for AbiWord that allows the checking
of style and diction. The source code for the gnu style and diction
tools is available here:
http://www.gnu.org/software/diction/diction.html
As a prototype you might be able to hack something using the AbiCmd
plugin to wrap the style and diction tools. The AikSaurus (Thesaurus)
plugin should also be a helpful guide.
When you get the basics working you could try to get AbiWord to display
green squiggle underlines to mark errors, or otherwise work on a good user
interface.
Comments: A great way to start playing with the AbiSourceSystem: Any OS will be fine.Challenge level: ***.. 3 stars out of 5Current Hero: The mastery of Kung Fu has yet to appear.

Name: Fix Windows printing boogs (bug
3239)Description: Tackle some or more of the various bugs that cause issues in attempting to print under WindowsAdvertisement: ????????????????????????????? (no, that's really the ad!)Recommended Outline: You must become magical to know how to fix this.
Comments: "The problem is that printing on Windows is broken with several brand
of printer drivers (see dependent bugs). It appears that with standard
PostScript driver it does not happen. It appears also that version
0.9.6 had less problems than 1.0.1 so we might find out where the
regression is bu diffing.
"Please, be sure to read all the bug reports.
Even partial fix are accepted.
"Fixes must be done against STABLE tree and possibly ported to HEAD
(the later can be done as a second step)."
This comes from HubNotice: This may already have been fixed with the libiconv upgrade, stay tuned!System: WindowsChallenge level: ****. 4 stars out of 5The MoFos who had the Huevos for this POW:

Name: More Windows MaintainersDescription: Mike, Jordi and Jeremy could always use helpAdvertisement: Help free people from the oppression of MSWord today!Recommended Outline: You must become magical to know how to fix this.Comments: Wouldn't be a bad idea to start with the printing bug...System: WindowsChallenge level: ****. 4 stars out of 5Current Hero: Jordi Mas

In the past week, the following Bugs have been verified as fixed.
The listed Bugs have all been put in either CLOSED or RESOLVED mode as FIXED.
Can you believe I said QA will return next week when it's been here (or not been here) for three weeks?
Final reminder, owners are the squishers and qa are the flushers (in case there's some question).

One other note, and this will apply across the bug area when the idea of credit comes up,

What you see here are either invalid bug reports or duplicates.
So, basically, I'm showing everyone else how doofy you are sometimes.
On average*, confirming duplication or non-validity takes four minutes and thirty-five seconds.
That's the equivalent of 8LLOC of time for Dom.
Any other questions why development isn't as fast as you want?

This is an AbiWord Weekly News original concept: The Release Hackdown.
In the table below, you can watch what bugs are being fixed in preparation for the very next release.
Check the key at the bottom to understand formatting.

No pressure, guys, I'm sure only 2000 or so people will be watching to see what you do weekly.
That breaks down to about 285 people daily and 12 people hourly, so, it's like being peeked at once every five minutes, literally.
"Isn't that veird!?"

Open Source, Open Books.
Approximately once a month, don't hedge bets, I'll get this updated by asking (read: whining at) dom.
In the meantime, whenever you want to see how much is in and where it gets diverted, just peek down here.

PLEASE!
Help promote AbiWord development by
donating money. The money goes to a general AbiWord "fund",
presently hosted by Dom Lachowicz (cinamod@hotmail.com).

In order to donate money, you must have a PayPal account. If you
do not already have one, the links above will allow you to open
one. Please consider putting cinamod@hotmail.com in the "Referral ID" field, which results in
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donations of $3 or more are of interest. Sorry, this is due to
the fees imposed by credit card companies and PayPal.

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